Dates: 2018-2020

Global context and objectives

Despite an increased awareness on the current ecological crisis, and efforts made towards biodiversity conservation – in particular in protected areas (PAs) that cover 14 % of the world’s terrestrial surface (UNEP-WCMC & IUCN, 2016) –, human activities continue to be a serious cause of biodiversity erosion (Vié et al., 2009). This loss affects the provision of ecosystem services (ES) and, thus, constitutes a threat to human wellbeing (Cardinale et al., 2012). Many solutions exist to reverse this declining trend, among which is the sustainable management of the areas around PAs, known to partly condition the success of biodiversity conservation inside PAs. The establishment of buffer zones around PAs has been promoted in several conservation policies at national and international levels in order to reconcile human activities around PAs and the biodiversity conservation inside PAs. However, the management of buffer zones is undermined by unclear boundaries and legislative status, and by the lack of awareness of local people. In addition, interface areas (IAs) around PAs remain unclearly defined and conceptualized in current research, and receive specific attention only recently. The CASEST project aims to (i) build a conceptual framework for analyzing IA social-ecological dynamics, (ii) identify the anthropogenic drivers of landscape changes at different temporal and spatial scales, and (iii) model IA social-ecological dynamics. The ambition of the project is to support policy making towards the sustainable management of IAs and the increased effectiveness of PAs.

 To achieve this ambition, we propose a four-step interdisciplinary research project that will consist in (i) the development of a conceptual framework, (ii) the acquisition of new biophysical and socio-economic data on three study sites, (iii) a spatial analysis of the anthropogenic drivers of landscapes in IAs, and (iv) modelling of IAs responses to changes in anthropogenic factors. 

 Towards a conceptual framework to analyses interface areas  

The existing literature is very fuzzy when referring to IAs. First, several terms exist to designate these areas, including “buffer areas”, “buffer zones”, and “interface”. A large number of papers are designating IAs through proximity adjectives, e.g. “areas around PAs”, or “areas adjacent to PAs”. Second, the spatial boundaries of IAs are generally defined arbitrarily, through the delimitation of a concentric buffer of a fixed distance around the PA. Thus, IAs boundaries do not account for the social or biophysical features that characterize these areas. Third, the legislative status of these areas is very heterogeneous depending on national and international legislations. 

There are therefore three key challenges:(i) defining IAs by considering their particular landscapes’ biophysical and social features, (ii) identifying current research gaps and challenges, and (iii) developing a consistent conceptual framework to address IA social-ecological dynamics and associated research gaps. 

Assessing changes in IA landscapes and their anthropogenic drivers 

Most landscapes are the result of the interplay between biophysical and anthropogenic factors. Yet, in the era of the Anthropocene, main landscape changes have an anthropogenic origin as human became the first driver of ecosystem transformation (Ellis 2011). This assumption is the starting point of the CASEST project that aims at identifying the anthropogenic factors responsible for landscape changes in the IAs. In this section, we develop how we will identify landscape changes and their anthropogenic drivers in the three case studies selected for the project: 

- The Brazilian case study, composed with the ‘Paraguay 01’, ‘Pardo PR’ and ‘Paraná 01’ sub-basins around the ‘Serra da Bodoquena National Park’ (Figure 1); 

- The Zimbabwean case study, composed with the ‘Lupane’, ‘Hwange’ and ‘Tsholotsho’ districts around the ‘Hwange National Park’ (Figure 2); 

- The South African case study, composed with the ‘George’, ‘Kou-Kamma’, ‘Knysa’ and ‘Bitou’ municipalities around the ‘Garden Route National Park’ (Figure 3). The figures are presented at the end of this document.

Modelling the feedbacks between anthropogenic and landscape changes 

One key objective of the CASEST project is to design a tool for supporting decision-making. In particular, we aim to provide decision makers with prediction on how the social-ecological system will react to given policies or decisions. To do so, we will develop an agent-based spatial model and complement this model with participative scenario planning.